A demand-based messaging system is any communication system that enables a person to exchange electronic messages with another person over a communications media. Demand-based messaging systems typically comprise a network of data processing machines and a messaging program operable on at least one machine to transfer electronic messages over the network to one or more of the other machines. Electronic messages typically are composed of a variety of information, including message data and transmission data. As those terms are used here, “message data” generally refers to the substance of the message, such as text or images, while “transmission data” generally refers to the information required to deliver or respond to the message, such as the correspondents' electronic addresses. Electronic messages also may include status information, such as the time and date that the message was composed, sent, or received.
LOTUS NOTES, MOZILLA, and MICROSOFT OUTLOOK are exemplary messaging programs that enable users to exchange electronic mail messages through networked computers. Instant messaging (“IM”) programs such as MSN MESSENGER and YAHOO! MESSENGER, which have gained popularity in recent years, exemplify another embodiment of messaging programs that enable users to exchange electronic messages in real-time through networked computers.
A person often addresses a message to multiple recipients, and expects a response from one or more of the recipients. A team supervisor, for example, may send a question to the team without knowing who will be able to answer the question. Several team members may reply with the answer. Other team members may reply with information that is helpful, but not dispositive. Some team members may even reply with information on topics unrelated to the original question.
Responses from multiple message recipients, though, can cause problems for both the message originator and the message recipients, including duplicative effort, unnecessary delays, and general confusion. For example, a reply from one recipient may substantially repeat a reply from another recipient, which generally is considered a waste of time and resources. Conversely, uncoordinated replies may conflict with each other, thereby creating confusion among the originator and recipients. Replies from multiple recipients also can create multiple message threads (i.e. discussions about a specific topic), which one person (often the originator) must manage and reconcile. Generally, the frequency of these types of problems increases proportionally with number of recipients.
Many, if not all, of these problems may be attributed to a larger problem that is common in all prior art messaging systems—the lack of an effective means for coordinating responses from multiple recipients. Recipients often do not know who should reply, or even if a reply is necessary. Nor does a recipient have any way to know if another recipient intends to reply. Of course, correspondents can adopt rules to coordinate responses, but all correspondents must know these rules in advance, which makes it more difficult to introduce new correspondents (from a different team, for example). Another alternative is to designate the appropriate respondents within each message, but the message originator may not know this information in advance.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,230 (the '230 patent) discloses a method for an originator of an email to specify one or more recipients in a reply address field as the destination whenever the recipient replies to the note, but does not provide the originator with a method to specify which third parties are to receive the reply, nor does the '230 patent provide identification of parties as they respond to an email.
Thus, there is a need in the art for an integrated means to coordinate responses from multiple message recipients.